


Ghosts and Clouds and Nameless Things

by thepointoftheneedle



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Motorcycle Crash, Smut, ghost jughead, maybe angst-not sure, seance, very brief mention of historical sexual assault and suicide-see note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27063514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepointoftheneedle/pseuds/thepointoftheneedle
Summary: SummaryThere is a little ghost living in Betty’s house.  Who is it?  Why is it haunting her?  What has it got to do with two dangerous Stonewall alumni?Sometimes it felt like it had been in the closet everyday for a month but other times it suspected that it had been gone for weeks, maybe longer.  It would re-inhabit itself and find new sheets on the shelves or see that the woman had changed winter sweaters for summer dresses.  There were many days when she seemed more sleepy than sad. Time seemed to stretch and fold on itself like salt water taffy being pulled. It had no definite chronology, events didn’t seem to follow, one from another but rather happen as scattered islands in a huge ocean.  It tried to remember something about before it was here but everything was hazy and confusing.  It wondered if it used to have a name.  It wasn’t even quite sure if it was a boy or a girl ghost but it supposed that didn’t really matter.  It was the ghost part that seemed pretty much the only important thing. Gradually, little by little, as the days passed like water leaking from a holed cistern, it began to connect thoughts and ideas into sequences.
Relationships: Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 36
Kudos: 78
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	Ghosts and Clouds and Nameless Things

**Author's Note:**

> The story contains a motorcycle crash, a seance and a fictional folk tale (I mean they’re all fictional, but I made this one up) which mentions sexual assault and suicide very briefly. I have put the folk tale into italics so you can skip it if you wish. It will not prevent you understanding the story. 
> 
> The title comes from a song by The Mountain Goats called “Maybe Sprout Wings.” Here’s a bit:
> 
> A bad dream shook me in my sleep  
> And I woke up sweating  
> Ran through the dark to the shower  
> Already forgetting  
> Try to think good thoughts  
> Trying to find my way clear  
> Let the room fill with steam  
> Trace pictures on the mirror  
> Ghosts and clouds  
> And nameless things  
> 

First a dream.

White bedlinen. Blue sky. The shushing of gentle waves against a sandy shore. A seabird high overhead, its wings making a whirring sound as it passes. Someone’s shoulder, sun-warmed and fragrant from the ocean. Absolute peace and safety. 

Unending, infinite, perfect love.

Heaven.

The little ghost was scared. It knew that was all wrong. Ghosts were supposed to be doing the scaring not sitting in a linen closet quaking and snivelling, but it couldn’t help it. It was all alone, it didn’t know where it was supposed to go and it was so very hungry. And the cold was terrible. It couldn’t even remember warmth. 

It wasn’t sure how it had come to be in the linen closet or how long it had been there but it was better than anywhere else it had found. It smelled good in here and, even though it couldn’t touch anything, the sheets and towels looked like they would be soft.

It wasn’t always hiding in the closet. It seemed just not to be at all sometimes. Then it would drift back to itself by degrees, skulk in darkness for a while before disintegrating again into absence. 

The thought came to it that maybe it would be better to stay diffused forever, without a self, but something seemed to anchor its essence in this house and back it would come, drifting and dragging. 

It was like being salt. It would dissolve into everything like salt in water, not really gone but no longer its own separate entity. Then the world seemed to depart from it, like evaporating tears, to leave a salty crust behind. The little ghost was the salt, first dissolved and then deserted by everything, forced back into its dried out, crystallised, dusty self. 

No-one comforted it, no-one guided it, it was entirely without solace. That, at least, felt familiar.

Sometimes, however, the pretty lady would open the door of the closet and put in a pile of freshly ironed sheets or some fluffy towels. That made its existence seem a little more bearable. Sometimes she’d take out pillowcases or a tablecloth. The little ghost flattened itself against the back wall of the closet when that happened, even though it wanted to reach out and touch her hair. It looked like the silkiest hair in the world. The little ghost didn’t want to scare her though. She couldn’t want to encounter some homeless spirit adrift in her home. She already seemed so terribly sad.

Sometimes it thought it had been in the closet everyday for a month but other times it suspected that it had been gone for weeks, maybe longer. It would re-inhabit itself and find new sheets on the shelves or see that the woman had changed winter sweaters for summer dresses. There were many days when she seemed more sleepy than sad. 

Time seemed to stretch and fold on itself like salt water taffy being pulled. There was no firm chronology, events didn’t seem to follow one from another, but rather happen as scattered islands in a huge ocean. It tried to remember something about before it was here but everything was strange and confusing. 

It wondered if it used to have a name. It wasn’t even quite sure if it was a boy ghost or a girl ghost but it supposed that didn’t really matter. It was the ghost part that seemed pretty much the only important thing. 

Gradually, little by little, as the days passed like water leaking from a holed cistern, it began to connect thoughts and ideas into sequences.

It wondered what it looked like, if it would recognise itself in a mirror. That idea began to preoccupy it so, one quiet afternoon as the despondent clock ticked downstairs and raindrops pattered softly on the roof, it slipped out of its closet and slunk along the hallway to a bedroom. It held itself close to the wall, sometimes slipping into it a little and feeling weirded out by seeing its own arm emerging from the plaster. It held in a sob when that happened until it could force itself along a little further. Eventually it reached the closed bedroom door and stood, perplexed, before it for a moment until it realised it could simply move through it without it being opened. It tried to take a deep breath, realised that it had no lungs, and simply put down its head and stepped through. 

There was a vanity table directly ahead of it. On the polished wood there was a framed photograph. The pretty woman was in it. She was the same person except that in the picture her eyes weren’t red and her hair was loose not scraped back and she was smiling. There was a man by her side. The little ghost felt a tiny glimmer of recognition. He was like someone you might happen to see in the street every morning on your journey to work or school and who you begin to look out for, smile at even. A familiar stranger. The man and the woman in the picture were looking at each other. It seemed as if they had been captured just as they leaned together for a kiss. The lady was in a white lace dress and the man looked ill at ease in his suit, his tie askew, his jacket sleeves pushed up scruffily. Their smiles were so wide it looked like their faces must hurt. It felt a pull in its own cheeks and realised it was smiling too. It had no clue why.

It remembered its purpose and looked up from the photographs and into the mirror. There was the room reflected back, quite empty. There was no one there. The disappointment felt like a wound in its chest, like a raw place that throbbed with hurt. It sobbed again, a single, painful spasm in its throat, not that it had a throat. 

It must have been distracted by its grief because it didn’t hear the footsteps on the stairs, didn’t notice the door handle being grasped, didn’t observe the door swing open. It wasn’t aware of her until she ran into the room, right through the little ghost, to throw herself onto the bed and abandon herself to huge wracking sobs. She seemed to be crying out in pain between the onslaughts of weeping. It wondered where she was hurt. Her knees weren’t skinned; it didn’t know where else to look. She threw a piece of paper onto the quilt as she gasped and gulped out her pain. The ghost was rigid as it was buffeted by conflicting emotions. It felt bereft for the woman crying on the bed, in such agony. It couldn’t conceive of what could have happened to make her so desperate. At the same time, as she had passed through its body, it had felt a glimmer of warmth for the first time that it could remember. There had been an instant of connection, of comfort, of consolation. It desperately wanted to kindle that glimmering spark, just as it yearned to provide her a moment of solace. Then again, it didn’t want to add fear to her anguish and that concern made it hesitate. Slowly it crept nearer to the side of the bed. The paper had printed words which it was surprised to find it could read. “Our deepest condolences...recognise his considerable achievements...posthumous award...Mark Twain Memorial Literary Prize...$50,000.” He looked at her face where it was pressed into the pillow. Her hair was disarranged and her fingers were gripping the comforter as if she were trying to hold onto something, anything, to prevent her sorrow from dragging her out of the world completely. Without making any sort of plan, it reached out its hand to place it on top of hers. It had forgotten that its body met no resistance from physical objects and so its fingers simply occupied the same space as hers. She breathed in sharply and looked up. It snatched its hand back and stepped away, with no idea how to hide its invisible self. “Juggie?” she whispered, softly, as if to herself. “Jug, is that you? Are you…here?” The little ghost turned and ran, through the door, down the corridor and back into its linen closet. Somehow the closet felt smaller now, less cosy, more confining.

Sometimes lately the little ghost would come to awareness and find itself in a different room. It would look about itself and realise it was standing in the kitchen or in front of the tv set in the den. It realised it could, with a little mental effort, cause the set to flicker into life. It would twitch with its mind and cycle through channels until it found cartoons or, for some reason, cooking shows. It would stand in front of the television until the woman would come in, look around a little anxiously, and switch it off again. Sometimes it would be in the attic, amongst boxes and old suitcases. Most often it would be in a room where all the furniture was covered in a fine layer of dust. The rest of the house was so clean, smelling of lavender furniture polish and freshly washed laundry, but this room felt strangely neglected. There was a cobweb in one corner where a spider waited patiently for its prey to stop by. The clock ticked sonorously, as it always did, in the hallway beyond. The room had bookcases. The little ghost thought that it might have liked books once. It certainly wished that it could pick up one of these volumes and turn the pages, escape into a story, be something else for a while. There was a long desk in the room, its legs made from two wide stacks of bricks. The top, perhaps an old door, was varnished to a shine and on it there was a new laptop computer alongside an old-fashioned typewriter. For some reason, when it looked at the typewriter it felt its lips twist into a smile. The room had two large glass doors that looked out over a lawn with trees and a pond. It liked the view. In this room, more than any of the others, more than even the closet, it felt peaceful. 

As it came back to itself this time, it recognised the room with the desk and smiled. It turned to look at the view and realised that it was nighttime. The garden was dark. The doors, silvered to a mirror by the dark garden, reflected the interior of the deserted study back to the little ghost. It gasped as it realised the room wasn’t entirely empty. There, in the middle of the rug, was a hazy, white shape, blurred as if the glass had been smeared by greasy fingers but distinctly present. It moved nearer to the glass and the shape echoed the movement, became larger. Hardly daring to believe it, the ghost raised a hand to the window and touched the fingers of its partner in the glass, feeling the cold, solid, surface for a moment before its fingers passed through into the night air beyond. Then absence.

The ghost found itself in the bedroom, the walls painted with morning. It stood for a moment, enjoying the way a shaft of light fell through the window onto the floor. In its head, a woman’s voice said excitedly, “This would have to be our room. It’ll get such beautiful morning light. Even you’d enjoy waking up in a room like this, you sleepyhead.” It had no idea where the voice had come from. Was it a memory? A dream? It looked over at the bed and realised that the woman who lived in the house was still sleeping, stirring and murmuring something. It liked to look at her and, since she was asleep, she wouldn’t be scared. It moved over and stood by the bed, watching as she breathed softly. It didn’t know how long it had been there when she suddenly opened her large green eyes and looked directly at the little ghost. “I can’t see you Jug, but I feel you. I love you so much. I wish you could come back. If you could just come back I’d never ask for anything from the world ever again,” and then she was crying again. The little ghost felt so sorry. It had reminded her of someone, probably the man in the photographs, and it had made her feel sad. It wanted to help but had no idea how. In its sorrow it reached out a hand and, as she sobbed, stroked her hair as gently as it could. As its hand passed over her head some strands seemed to move and she sighed and closed her eyes again. “I knew you wouldn’t leave me all alone. I’ll always love you, alive, dead, always. This will always be your home.” When the little ghost turned to go, it glanced toward the mirror. It saw itself then, quite clearly, a small figure, draped in a sheet, dark holes for eyes, surely slightly larger than when it had seen its reflection in the study windows.

The ghost sat in the room with the desk, waiting for nightfall. As it waited it toyed with the edge of its sheet. It was a ridiculous affectation. Why the hell was it draped in a sheet like a trick or treater with parents too neglectful to supply a costume? It realised that there was a tag on the hem of the fabric. It pulled it closer. “Property of Riverdale General Hospital,” it read. There was something scratching at its mind. Riverdale seemed familiar. There was something that it should remember, something important. It had tried remembering before. It had wondered if the woman who lived in the house was its mother, but really it knew she wasn’t. When it thought of mothers it seemed to recall dark hair, thick black lines drawn around glittering, untrustworthy eyes, stinging pain in its ear from a slap, laughter without any joy. The woman who lived in the house was the opposite of that. She was light and love. She was peace and hope all embodied in the calm of her ordered home. Somehow the thought of her slowed the heartbeat it didn’t have. Eventually the garden was dark and it went to stand in front of the glass. It was as frightened as it had ever been. It suspected that the sheet covered something horrifying, wounds, sickness, monstrous disfigurement. Still, it had to know. It gripped the edge of the sheet and pulled it away with a decisive flourish. It wasn’t as bad as it had feared. In front of the glass stood a boy, almost a young man, maybe fifteen. Dark hair, messy and a touch greasy, pale skin, dark circles bruised under blue eyes, a sharp jaw. He was tall and skinny. His clothes were old and a little dirty. He seemed composed of sharp angles, his elbows jutting awkwardly. He moved still closer and he could see dried blood at his collar and beneath his ear, something was a little wrong around his neck, something out of alignment there. Still, nothing hurt and he wasn’t really a monster, just a scrawny kid in baggy clothes. He left the sheet on the couch and walked away, shoulders hunched, hands deep in his pockets.

He felt most at ease in the study these days but, when he slunk in one morning, he found her already there. Her hair was hidden beneath a scarf and she was singing softly as she dusted. She had a beautiful voice. She was beautiful all over. “Creep,” he reproached himself. Perving on a distraught widow was really not a good look for a respectable spook. He began to turn to leave when she looked up and, in a heart stopping moment, her eyes held his and she gasped and staggered back. His instincts told him to run but he needed to make sure she knew he intended her no harm. He put out a hand to reassure her and she grasped it. Her fingers passed through his but there had been a moment of resistance, a moment when he felt her grip. He lunged away, fled, frightened of her and of the tsunami of emotion that her touch unleashed. He didn’t stop running until there was nowhere else to run.

Later, he had no idea how much later, or maybe it was earlier, he was drifting on the stairs when he heard her talking in the kitchen. “But how the hell did it get here V? It makes no sense. Give me a rational explanation for why there’s sheet from Riverdale General in Jug’s writing room and I’ll try to believe it.” There was silence for a moment and he realised she was speaking on the phone. "See, there isn’t one.” He ambled down the rest of the stairs and leaned against the door frame so he could look through the crack by the hinges as she talked to her friend. “I’ll tell you what explains it. He’s here V. He’s really here. I can feel him. Not all the time but more and more often. Sometimes I think I see him, just for a moment.” Another silence. “No, I’m fine. You don’t have to do that.” The voice at the other end of the line was louder now, he couldn’t make out the words but they were clearly insistent. “Ok, ok, it would be lovely to see you even if you’re only coming to have me committed. Ok, see you in a few days. I love you V.” She ended her call and then turned to the door. “I can feel you Jug. Why’re you lurking out there? Come closer. Be with me.” He stepped back abruptly, knocking against a table with a plant on it, making it rock dangerously and gawping at the fact that he had moved a physical object. He didn’t want to disappoint this lovely woman who thought he was her dead husband not some random kid with a broken neck and no fucking social skills so he headed for the stairs and sprinted up them two at a time to crush himself back into the linen cupboard. As he ran she yelled “Poltergeist,” after him with laughter in her voice. He’d never heard her laugh before. It was a magical sound. He loved it.

The kitchen this time. He supposed that he had been driven there by the gnawing hunger that he had no means to assuage. He had no stomach in which to put food. If he put it into his mouth it would simply fall to the floor like in an old cartoon. Not that he had the means to raise it to his lips in the first place. He stared impotently at the jars on the open shelves. There, as if to taunt him, were the staples to create all manner of meals. There was the ditalini he would put into minestrone with the stock after the soffritto was softened and glossy. Here were jars of tomatoes that he would add along with soaked borlotti beans and eventually pesto. He'd use the strong flour to make ciabatta to go with the soup, shredding a pungent heap of parmesan before taking it to the table. If he'd had a mouth it would be watering.

Abruptly he came to his senses. Soup? He was getting excited about vegetable goddamn soup. What was wrong with him? He was fairly sure he was entirely a burger guy. His vegetable consumption amounted to the pickle under the lid of the bun. He didn't even know what soffritto was for God's sake. He’d only just discovered who he was and now he seemed to be turning into something else entirely, increasingly feeling lost to himself. Perhaps dead folks all suddenly developed an interest in the culinary arts.

As he stood uncertainly before the shelves, the woman came in, humming to herself. She shivered and pulled her thick cardigan around her body more tightly. "Is that you Jug? The heating bill is going to be astronomical this winter if you can't warm up a little.” He smiled. It actually did make him feel a little warmer when she spoke to him like that. Not that she meant him. She thought she was talking to the dead husband dude. He was just the creep who listened in and gawped at her. A crush when you’re a corpse had to be the absolute worst.

He watched as she reached up for the jar of flour. It was a stretch for her. He could have moved behind her, put one hand on her waist and reached the jar with his other hand. He was taller than her now by quite a few inches. He could kiss her neck as he put it on the counter. If he got lucky she'd forget whatever it was she was planning to make. She’d turn to face him and he’d put his hands behind her thighs and boost her onto the counter and… Except he couldn't do any of that. If he put a hand on her waist it would fall right through her liver without meeting the slightest resistance. He could, maybe, if he concentrated very hard, dislodge the jar from the shelf but only so that it fell, probably injuring her on its descent. Anyway when had he become such a stalker? It was bad enough that he watched her, listened in when she spoke to friends, now he was imagining touching her, certainly without her consent, possibly without her knowledge.

She had managed the jar by herself now. Perhaps she had never needed any help. She took eggs from the refrigerator along with a stick of butter and then paused, looked fixedly at a spot by the window, where he definitely was not standing, and said “Right, muffins. I like white chocolate and apricot but, since you're here, skulking around, how about the triple chocolate?” At least the dead husband dude had good taste in baked goods. His nonexistent stomach growled as she poured flour into a bowl and she spun around, looking directly at him, as if she had heard it. “God, Jug, are you hungry? What can I do? Shall I make the muffins or not?”

He reached out his hand and with his pointer finger wrote "Yes," in the flour. It actually moved at his touch. Connection at last. She was wonderful. Faced with a situation that would have reduced most people to a quivering mess, she simply tightened her ponytail and began to bake. She melted chocolate and butter together, sifted cocoa powder into flour and measured chocolate chips. In less than fifteen minutes the kitchen was filled with the most delicious aroma.

When the muffins emerged from the oven she reached for powdered sugar and dredged them generously. The sugar rose into the air in a cloud and, licking his lips, he found he could taste its sweetness on his tongue. She picked up one of the muffins, holding it out, but there was nothing he could do to take it from her. Somehow she seemed to sense that and she crumbled the warm cake into her hand, as if he were a horse that she was offering a sugar cube. He wasn't too proud to try, so he bent his head over her hand, his hair flopping forward onto her wrist, and licked at the crumbs on the palm of her hand. He could taste the richness, the sweetness, the depth of the flavour but he couldn't take it into his mouth, couldn’t swallow. He licked her hand and then he brushed his tongue on her pulse point, tasting her. When he looked up, she was flushed and breathing hard. It made him feel powerful. He wanted to make her feel like that again, over and over again. Then she began to cry. "Come back Jug. Just come back. I can't do any of this.” He realised what he had done, making some kind of post mortem pass at this poor vulnerable girl. He felt ashamed of himself. His loneliness wasn’t an excuse. He should keep away.

He watched from the attic window when her friend arrived in a black town car. She seemed to have a lot of luggage for a short stay. He watched as she dropped her bags and ran to the woman who lived in the house, calling out “Betty, darling!” and hugging her in a tight embrace. She was called Betty. He had no idea why that seemed to make his non-existent heart quiver or why he found himself repeating the name over and over again as he moved silently about the house.

Later that evening he couldn’t prevent himself from eavesdropping. The women took their glasses of wine into the den and Betty began to light the log fire. She’ll forget the damper, he thought. She always forgets the fucking damper. Then he was confused because he had no idea what a damper was. Something to do with the fireplace he guessed but didn’t know how he knew that. Suddenly she yelled, “I’ve opened the goddamn damper. Trust you to be a control freak from beyond the grave.” The friend looked alarmed, she clearly thought that her BFF was having some kind of nervous collapse but Betty laughed, “I lived with him for ten years V. He’d want to criticise and then he’d think ‘Don’t nag her, you asshole,’ and then he’d just watch silently as I did something that drove him crazy, screaming inside all the time. You learn to hear that. So I don’t know if he’s here, saying that I always forget the fucking damper or if I just supply what he would say if he were here. I haven’t been sure where he ends and I begin for years. Which is why I can’t lose him. I just can’t.” There was a sob in her voice and he wanted to reach out to her so badly. The thing with the damper was weird. Maybe he’d read about fireplaces and just forgotten. He’d forgotten his name so it wouldn’t be surprising.

He hid himself just outside the door in the dark hallway as they chatted. The friend, Veronica apparently, was concerned. She had hoped that Betty would be finding her feet after a year but if she was now imagining a haunting then, she suggested gently, maybe it was time to get some kind of help. Betty laughed at that idea. “I’m happier than I’ve been since…since it happened. I feel like I’m being reassembled. Like I’ve been a puzzle in a box but I’m starting to fit back together, to see the picture. The problem is that so many of the pieces are missing. But when I feel him, here with me, I start to imagine I could be whole again. It gives me some hope and I haven’t had that for so long V. I won’t lose it again.”

“Betty, my darling, the way I see it there are two alternatives. The first, and I’m sorry but it’s the most likely, is that your mind just can’t accept that he’s gone. It was a horrible thing, such a shock. It would have broken anyone. Maybe your subconscious just can’t accept it and so it’s supplying what it imagines you need. But my sweetest girl, he loved you and then he died. People who die are gone. Maybe you need to try to fix the part of you that can’t accept that?”

“Don’t like that option. What’s the other one?” Betty asked decisively.

“Well there are more things in heaven and earth. Monsignor Murphy would say that we are dealing with an unquiet spirit who needs to be put to rest. He would exorcise the house. If Jughead, or any other entity, is here it can be sent on its way. He should be in heaven Betty, not skulking around in this house, upsetting you,” Veronica said quietly.

“I’m not having him evicted from his own home. If he wants to live here with me until it’s time for me to move on with him then that’s just fine with me. He’s not some demon or something, he’s my husband, he’s the last man I’ll ever kiss. My heart is reaching out to him with every beat, I look for him in every room. Every time I laugh I want to tell him the joke, I want to show him everything that makes me smile. I forget he’s gone every fucking morning. I forget and I reach out into cold sheets and then I don’t know how to get through the day until I can sleep and forget again. Can you understand that?” She was sobbing now and it was all he could do not to go to her.

“Ok, honey. I’m sorry. Now there’s no need to cry is there? It’ll be ok. I’m here. There.” He could see that Veronica had reached out to her and was holding her and stroking her hair as she cried. He wanted it to be him that did that. He couldn’t bear to watch any longer. He walked away from the door and headed into the writing room. There was a full moon shining in through the windows, illuminating the desk. He sat down resting his head on the palm of his hand. As he sat there, he reached out a tentative finger to the typewriter and pushed down gently on a key. It moved. He stared at it and then wheeled the chair closer. Before he was aware of what he was doing his fingers were flying over the keys with a skill and speed that he had no idea he possessed. He typed rapidly, his fingers moving independent of his will, pushing the carriage return with a ding of the bell and typing again. There was a noise from the corridor outside and he looked up in alarm, someone was outside. He stood up from the desk and melted backwards through the wall to stand in the kitchen, panting and shocked. 

He could hear the women in the study on the other side of the wall. “Ok Betty, something is definitely happening. That was so creepy. Oh my God!” Veronica gasped.

“What, what did he type?”

“Betty Cooper. I love Betty Cooper. Over and over again.” There was a soft cry and a thud and hurrying footsteps. He moved into the corridor. Betty was crumpled on the floor, her friend crouching over her, holding her in her arms, rocking her gently as she cried. He went upstairs but was no longer able to squeeze into the linen closet. Instead he went and sat on her bed, head in his hands. He had no idea why he had typed that. He liked Betty, liked her very much, but he was a kid, he hadn’t even had a girlfriend, let alone been in love. He wondered if he was being possessed. Maybe the ghost of her late husband was taking him over with his damper obsession and his fucking minestrone. He moved to the vanity table to look into the mirror, perhaps he’d be able to see the imposter there, hiding behind his eyes. What he saw made him gasp and step back. The man that looked back at him was him, but he wasn’t the skinny kid he’d been before. He was older, broader across the shoulders, his face more mature, his hair still messy but no longer limp and greasy. He looked down at the photograph, the face matched the one in the mirror. He stared trying to remember, reaching for anything to hold fast to. Suddenly he recalled a moment from his past, he stood facing her, both so much younger, just kids. “Also…” he said and she smiled. He leaned in. Jug and Betts, Cooper and Jones. He was the dead husband dude. He spun away from himself again, with no idea how long he drifted senseless, but when he returned there was another presence in the house, a strong, magnetic, irresistible force.

Veronica had persuaded Betty that they should bring her grandmother to help them. Apparently “Abuelita” always knew exactly what to do with respect to all spiritual matters. He drifted about in the hallway like an eavesdropping creep while the three women talked in the kitchen, sipping herbal tea that smelled like a damp hedgerow. He hoped he’d pick up some tips from this fount of all knowledge on how he should be going about his ghosting since he was getting no guidance anywhere else.

“So mi querida pequeña, you are sure that this spirit is your late husband? Because the evil one is a trickster and he may wear a mask to hurt you,” cautioned the older woman.

“It’s him. I feel him. And if it were some evil spirit, it’s working against itself. I feel stronger than I have since it happened, happier, more grateful. I know him. I’d know him anywhere.” It was true, he thought. She had known him when he didn’t know himself. 

“So Betty, my dear, you agree that if he could move on then that would be best? Imagine how this is for him, able to see you but not to touch you or talk with you, always here but always kept apart. In paradise there is no time, there would be no waiting for him, you will be with him and you will both be with God.” She crossed herself devoutly.

“But why hasn’t he gone Señora Luna? Why did he come here after the accident?” Betty was leaning forward now, trying to understand.

“Let’s try to ask him,” Veronica’s grandmother replied. “We need to prepare.”

Abuelita Luna marshalled her troops and they scurried about the house finding the things that she required for the creation of what she called her mesa blanca. Soon there was the largest white linen tablecloth, freshly ironed on the dining table. Two candlesticks with fresh white candles were placed on either side of one of their huge Copa de Balon gin glasses, filled to the brim with water. Abuelita produced an altar cross made of crystal from her capacious purse and placed it on the table, draping a white rosary around it. Then Veronica placed a vase of white roses on the table. Finally Betty brought their family Bible and placed it on the altar. He noticed that she was crying a little as she placed it and wondered at that. They had never been a religious couple. Veronica obviously noticed too and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Betty smiled weakly at her. “My grandmother gave me this when I was confirmed. There’s a space at the front where you write the date of your marriage and then record the births of your children. All I have to record is the date he died. No birthdays.” Veronica threw her arms around her friend and they cried together. How the fuck had he gotten himself killed instead of giving this incredible woman the children he owed her? 

He was so angry at himself that he gave the stupid goddamn mesa blanca a shove, rattling the candles and sloshing the water. Abuelita smiled. “He’s eager to talk with us. Come, now we sit.”

He wasn’t sure what was said; his execrable Spanish had always been a source of embarrassment to him, but when the women had taken their places and Veronica’s Abuelita began to pray he felt compelled to draw nearer. He drifted closer until finally he was standing directly behind Betty. He had the idea that he was invited to speak through Veronica’s grandmother but that felt far too intimate a connection with someone he had barely met so he simply stepped forward into Betty. They gasped in concert, he felt her heart beating in his chest, felt her lungs breathing his air, a simulacrum of vibrant life in his insubstantial form. For the first time in so many months he could feel heat from the candles. The heady perfume of the flowers was heavy and tangible. Life was intoxicating. And Betty was the most inebriating element of it. The sensation was like nothing he had experienced before, more intimate than they had ever been. She was everywhere, drenching his consciousness, soaking his mind with her essence. He had been flayed and she soothed, he had been burnt and she cooled, he had been alone and forsaken; she brought him indoors and nourished him. There were vistas of her here, landscapes and fields of stars, all of them entirely her. He could feel her thoughts in his own mind, caressing him with a tenderness that he somehow knew was reserved for him alone. He understood quite clearly, for the first time, the expanses and profundities of her love for him. He tried to open his mind to her, to show her that he loved her in the same degree and he felt her smile. “I know my love. I always knew,” she whispered. “He’s here Señora Luna, he’s in here with me.” Abuelita looked surprised but she composed herself and spoke to him, watching Betty carefully. “Who are you spirit?” she asked.

“I don’t really remember who I am. Just fragments. I remember this woman, loving this woman. She calls me Jughead so I guess I’m Jughead,” he replied, in Betty’s voice. He was aware of her smiling at his words, calm even though she was subject to some kind of possession.

“Can you leave this house?” Asked Señora Luna.

“I haven’t tried. I don’t remember coming here. I don’t remember anything really. Only her. I don’t know where else to go. Oh, wait. There was something. A bed, white sheets, a beach, a seabird, warmth. Maybe that was heaven.” He felt Betty’s sob in his throat and then she spoke, her voice from his lips that were hers.

“It was our honeymoon. We had a cabin on a beach in the Maldives. It was so beautiful. You said that paradise couldn’t be more perfect.” Now Veronica was crying too. They would all float away on tears like a scene in Alice in Wonderland if this didn’t stop soon. Abuelita was made of less sentimental mettle.

“Do you mean her harm? Speak truth, I compel you in the name of the Holy Mother.”

“Never. I’ll do anything rather than harm her. I’m lost. I don’t know where else to be. She’s my home, she’s my anchor. I can’t go anywhere without her. Whatever I am, I’m her creature. Don’t make me leave her. I don’t belong anywhere else and I don’t want to belong. Just let me stay here and be with her.”

“Was your life ended by violence? Do you seek justice?”

Betty began to reply,”No, there was an accident. His motorcycle…,” but he didn’t let her finish the sentence. 

“I feel like there is something I should remember. Something that needs to be known but I don’t recall. It’s possible.” Betty’s heart was beating faster now.

“Should I have gone there Jug? I didn’t walk the scene. I couldn’t face it. Oh God, did I let you down?”

“No, Betts, no. If there’s something we need to know I’ll remember. You couldn’t have done more for me, really,” he rushed to reassure her. Accident or not, this wasn’t her fault.

“Very well. We have heard you. Depart this woman, spirit.” He was about to tell her that he wasn’t about to be ordered around inside his own home, inside his own wife more precisely, when she made a shooing gesture and he found himself spinning backwards from Betty. It was terrifyingly cold outside and he felt so alone again that he crumpled to the floor, hugging his knees against his chest and sobbing.

“Well that’s definitely him,” said Veronica. “He’s still extra even now he’s dead. Sorry Betty.”

“No, that’s fine. He is. Thank you Abuelita. It was wonderful to speak with him. Do you know what we have to do?”

“Betty, I don’t think I can help with this. I think this is something that you must do yourself. May I tell you a story of my people?” Betty nodded encouragingly and Abuelita settled down to her story.

_“There is a story, a very old story, told to me by my grandmother when I was just a child. It is about the days when the Spanish came to our land, a terrible time. There was a man, Huanca, who lived with his daughter, Taruca. The young woman was ready for marriage but her mother had died and she decided to stay with her papi and care for him instead of making a family of her own. Her father worried for her and tried to introduce her to the eligible young men of the village but she was stubborn and refused to leave him all alone. He was too fond to force her. One day Huanca was off with the other men of the town repairing the high terraces where they grew their crops. It was heavy work, high in the hills above the village, so they would take food and blankets and sleep out on the hillsides until their labour was done. While they were away the Spanish came to the undefended village. They saw what the village had and they took what they wanted, the food stores, the statues of the old gods made of gold and silver, the women. One of the soldiers saw Taruca. Her name meant deer in the old language and she was lithe and beautiful like a doe. The soldier wanted her and so he took her. When he had used her, she was so ashamed, so broken, so despairing, that she went to the river. She threw herself into the tumbling waters and she drowned. When Huanca returned and he learned what had happened he ran wild with grief. He was inconsolable. Eventually he went to his home and turned his face to the wall and waited to die himself._

_Then something strange began to happen. He thought he heard Taruca singing as she used to sing when she was just a little girl. He imagined he heard her footsteps running outside the door as he had heard them as she ran with her playmates. He thought he glimpsed the thick dark braid of her hair flit past the window, low, as when she had been only seven or eight summers old. Many people would have been afraid and run away from the house but Huanca was so happy to glimpse his daughter that he began to speak to her, to tell her how he loved her and missed her. It seemed to him that they had been so close to each other that a little part of her soul was lodged in his own and remained in their home. He remembered when he first saw Taruca, cradled in her mother’s arms, an hour after she was born. She had been a new, tiny soul then and he and his wife had nourished and nurtured her until her soul and her body were strong and vibrant. He was determined to nourish this tiny scrap of soul again, to see if it might grow. And, by speaking words of love, singing gently to her, reminding her of how he cared for her, gradually Taruca returned to him. At first she was a confused child, her body as insubstantial as a breeze in the mountains but slowly she began to grow until she was as solid and as full grown as she had ever been. The villagers were afraid at first but Huanca told them that the old gods had returned Taruca to them to show that love could defeat injustice and greed and Taruca’s sweet nature and kind ways convinced them that was true. It wasn’t long before one of the young men of the village began to call on Taruca and asked Huanca for her hand. It was agreed that Taruca and her new husband would live with Huanca and care for him until the end of his days because, as Taruca said with a smile, he had given her life, twice._

Betty smiled as the tale ended, ”It's a beautiful story Señora Luna, but what does it mean? What should I do?” she asked.

“Niña, I cannot tell what will happen for you and your esposito but I do believe that love can heal all hurts, repair all rifts, and a love like yours is even more special than most. Like Huanca’s in the story, this is a love that pays no heed to death. For him, you are paradise. How can he seek another heaven when he has it already, here, in the palm of his hand? Love him Elizabeth, love him and who knows what might be possible.”

Veronica and her grandmother left the next morning. As they stood, embracing outside the house, the older woman pressed a white rosary into Betty’s hands. “I know that you are not of our faith little one, but perhaps this will bring you comfort one day. Keep it, with my prayers. It was blessed by the Holy Father in Rome.” Betty thanked her with tears in her eyes. Veronica kissed her and promised to call her friend every day and then they were gone. 

After they had driven away Betty murmured "Alone at last, lover. Whatever can we do to occupy ourselves?” He recognised the catch in her voice. He had known that expression in her eyes since they were sixteen years old. He had no idea how she planned to get over the sexual difficulty presented by him being both dead and incorporeal but, as always with Betty's sexual initiatives, he was keen to participate. He bent to kiss her neck and was gratified by the shiver that she gave in response. "How is it possible that you turn me on from beyond the grave? Come on husband, let's see what you've got.” They had been lovers when they were still teenagers so they had learned about sex together, understanding and trusting each other implicitly. One of them being disembodied certainly presented a unique set of challenges but they could be resourceful when it was required. They went upstairs and Betty shrugged off the two winter sweaters she had taken to wearing each day as a defence against his supernatural chill. She unhooked her bra and threw it to the floor. He could see the gooseflesh as she shivered. Ordinarily he would have attributed that to lust but today he suspected that it might simply be cold. She seemed to be losing her confidence now, alone and half naked in her bedroom with the ghost of her dead husband staring at her with the worst case of sexual dysfunction imaginable. Not only could he not get hard, he couldn’t even get substantial. He was being betrayed by both Biology and Metaphysics. He remembered how it had felt when he stepped into her at the seance but he didn’t know how to do it without the water and the rosary, and he certainly didn't think inviting Veronica's grandmother to their bedroom adventures was going to be an option. Still he had to try something so he stepped behind her and put his arms around her waist, holding her gently and kissing her neck as he had done so many times before. "I can feel you, I think. I'm not sure if it’s my imagination. Are you behind me? Is that you? It’s working anyway.” She moved over to the bed and lay down, "Put your hand on mine,” she said and as he did so she stroked her palm over her breast. He felt his breath catch in his throat and her nipple hardened at his touch or perhaps the chill. "Is it ok?” she whispered "Do you want this?" He needed her to hear his reassurance but he knew she wouldn't hear him speak. Instead he reached his fingers through hers, into her flesh, squeezing even though there was no resistance. She moaned as he did it and he responded to her pleasure. She trailed her hand lower to the edge of her underwear and then, as he moved his hand lower still, she seemed to follow his lead. She touched herself and moaned his name. At last he recognised it as his name. He knew himself now, like this, with her. He was her man, her lover, always that, even when everything else was gone. He moved his hand over her as he had learned to do years before, a movement as natural to him as his fingers on the keys of the typewriter and as much a part of his true identity.

"I love you,” he whispered. "Whatever I am, I'm a thing that loves you." Her breath was coming fast and shallow now, little moans and cries as he moved his fingers inside hers. Then she stopped abruptly at the brink of her climax and he moved on, relentlessly, until she fell to pieces under his hand. "I feel you Jug. I feel your hand on me. Oh God it feels so good." He put his lips against hers and there was resistance. He could feel her mouth, her tongue against his and he gasped at the intensity of the contact. He was thrusting at her hip like an animal, unable to resist a friction he'd been unable to experience, losing control like a horny kid. Her fingers were in his hair and she was crying out in joy and surprise. "Oh your hair, your beautiful hair. I love you. Can you be inside me? Can you?” He had no idea but he would do anything to find out. She pulled off her underwear and he unbuttoned a pair of jeans which he he distinctly remembered throwing out about eight years before. He pushed them below his hips to lay over her and thrust. He was stunned to feel her around himself, familiar and yet miraculous. He moved in her, sobbing, seeing her weeping too. "Am I hurting you? What’s wrong?” he asked, certain that she couldn't hear him.

"Nothing's wrong my love. You're here and I love you and you're inside me. What could be wrong? Stay with me. Stay forever.’’ He made love to her as if it were the first time and the last. He had no idea if he would be drawn away down some mystical tunnel of light at any moment so he tried to fix the experience in his mind to take with him into eternity. She began to quiver around him and he felt himself at the edge of his own climax. He had no idea what would happen if he came inside her, fearing some terrible ectoplasmic extrusion so he tried to pull out but she grabbed his ghostly ass and simply wouldn't allow it. He juddered and shivered and sobbed through an orgasm that seemed to go on for minutes and then collapsed against her, panting. He expected to dissolve at any moment and yet here he remained. She pressed herself against him, her eyes closed tightly, running her leg down his. She exclaimed sharply “Christ Jug are you still wearing sneakers? You didn't even take off your sneakers! That’s unacceptable even if you are dead.” 

As they lay together, her head against his shoulder in their familiar way, he wondered if this was how they would live together now. He’d take it. Gradually, however, he began to feel her head sinking through his body as his substance dissolved away. Clearly the effect of whatever sex magic they had cast did not last forever. He roused her and kissed her before he would be unable to touch her. “I’m drifting again Betts. I don’t know how to stop it. I’m so sorry.”

She reached up to stroke his hair, clearly aware that it was less solid than before. “I’m going to do exactly what Abuelita told me. I’ll be right here loving you. Always. Come back to me when you can. I’ll always be here.” There were tears in her eyes and he got up from the bed, buttoning his phantom jeans. It would be too sad to simply fade away with her right there. He moved away, down into the study and sat at the desk, trying to remember his life. He kept thinking about the fucking minestrone. It was beginning to drive him crazy.

She was true to her word. She was there whenever he returned from where ever the hell it was he went. He would rouse himself to find her singing as she stocked the pantry, huffing and panting as she dragged a basket of split logs to the fireplace, twisting a lock of her hair around her finger as she read in the huge armchair in the corner of the kitchen. He would move towards her and she would look up, searching the empty space with pleading eyes. “Is that you Jug? It’s been a week. I was worried,” or she’d smile, “Back again so soon? I was with you this morning.” It began to root him more firmly in the present, having a timeline. 

It was like being a cloud. Sometimes he seemed to be cumulus, to cohere together, to be practically solid, to have delineated edges and surfaces and yet at other times he was cirrostratus, as insubstantial as vapour hazing the sun. And there were occasions when all of his atoms were dispersed, he was everywhere and nowhere, with no more regard for himself that for any other object in the universe, simply drifting. At first his will had no impact upon how that occurred, he was dragged by other forces outside his understanding but gradually he began to notice that he drifted most when Betty didn’t think of him. When she had been medicated he was barely present, her dreams of him called him into existence, her dreamless slumber released him. Her strong emotion held him together. When he was able to feel, it seemed that his passions did the same. The more intense the sensation, the greater his power to interact with the world. He began to practice, focusing on his love for her in order to place a kiss on her cheek, receiving a smile in return which enabled him to achieve even more, sometimes even manifesting physically. They lived together, the woman and the spirit, navigating a new reality, mapping it together.

He felt closest to her in the kitchen. He thought maybe he remembered being there as something they did together. He thought he recalled sitting by the counter as she was baking, swiping chocolate chips or dipping his finger into the cake mix when her back was turned. She’d swat at him with a spatula but smile indulgently at the same time. She baked, he cooked. She’d chop carrots and celery for him while he rolled the pasta or pounded basil into pesto. 

He found her there, standing by the window, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, staring into space. He still kept thinking about the fucking soup but he had no notion of why. He wondered if she knew. There was a bookstand at the edge of the counter. If he focussed on the book he thought maybe he could flip the pages. It was an effort. He reached out a finger and tried to turn them with sheer will. His finger kept slipping through the cover of the volume but he’d curse and try again. She must have heard something because she turned and looked at the book. “That you Jug?” she murmured. “Feel like cooking something?” Somehow her attention seemed to give him the focus he needed and he began to turn page after page until he found the recipe for minestrone. Betty watched, perplexed, until she saw where the pages rested. “That’s right Jug. That was what you were cooking that last day. Making huge production of it as usual, even though it was just soup. Every pot in the house out on the stove. You said you wanted to take a simple recipe and tweak it so it was completely perfect. The ultimate minestrone. You were making stock from a chicken carcass when you got a phone call.” She paused, tears springing up in her eyes. “Is this what you need? You want me to tell you this, right?” He put his hand on her cheek, hoping that she would sense him, willing her to feel his presence. She nodded and carried on. “Some guy called you. He said he was at the Whyte Wyrm in Riverdale and that your dad was there, rolling drunk, off the wagon. He said he thought you would want to know. It was getting dark, raining, cold. I told you to take the SUV but you said the bike was quicker. You wanted to get there as fast as you could. You could weave around the traffic. You went and… well, you never came home again. Until now I guess. When you hadn’t checked in by midnight I called FP. He swore he hadn’t set foot in the Wyrm in months. He hadn’t seen you. I called Sweetpea, Fangs, Toni, Old Deuteronomy, everyone I could think of. No-one had heard from you. They got the Serpents together and rode out to look for you.” Her tears were falling now but he had the sense that telling the story was helping her too, cleaning a wound. She sighed deeply. “They found you on the Greendale Road, the bike was a mess, in a ditch. You were at the side of the road, cold by the time they found you. Your neck was broken, you were quite dead. The road had been wet. In the dark maybe you hit a rut or went into a skid. Anyway your Dad stayed with you, waiting for the ambulance, while the rest of them rode over here, all of them, in the rain. They didn’t want me to hear any other way. They wouldn’t leave me. We sat in the den, all night and all the next day, crying, yelling, drinking too much, while your dad arranged your funeral. I was perfectly useless. Then my mom came with your dad and they called the doctor and had me sedated. I don’t remember much about the funeral or the weeks after it. Then gradually, late in the spring, I started to wean myself off the pills and I began to feel you here, like you’d been waiting for me.” She smiled wanly into the empty room. It was the bravest, most resolute thing he’d ever seen. It made him want to weep.

Now she had told him the story she straightened her ponytail and began to beat flour and softened butter together. He knew she was struggling to recover her equilibrium with the familiar activity. He didn’t know how he could regain his. His mind whirled, trying to recall the day when he had thrown away his life, somewhere out there on that wet road. She was placing the cake tins into the oven as he felt himself losing his footing in her world. He felt as though his ability to stay in one moment was under attack. It was like the only time he'd experimented with acid at a college party. He’d been unable to hold a line of thought against a tide of confusing and contradictory sensations. Things didn’t signify as they should, fiction and fact, reality and imagination became interchangeable. Now thoughts and ideas seemed to surge from his mind to exist in this space with him. He could no longer tell what was dream and what nightmare. He was pretty sure some of the impressions were memories, layers of Bettys in this kitchen, baking, sitting at the counter with her head thrown back in laughter, a glass of wine in her hand, in his arms as they danced slowly to an old song that they'd loved in high school, sitting on the counter with him standing between her knees, sucking dark bruises at the top of her breasts as she moaned and pulled at his hair. But there were other ideas too, impossible, disturbing visions. Bret Weston Wallis leaning against the refrigerator laughing at him, calling him Forsythe, drinking his beer, Archie opening the back door, calling out “Honey l’m home,” and Betty turning to him, a smile on her face and a redheaded baby on her hip, a figure in a black ski mask outside the kitchen window, staring in with arresting green eyes. He felt himself collapse to the floor under the onslaught of the impressions, lacking the strength to stand. That was when he saw his father's legs, close by, unsteady, swaying, his loud voice yelling from somewhere high above, making him so scared that, if he'd had a stomach he'd have vomited. The room was a maelstrom, the inside of his mind played out in full colour in the sanctuary of their home. He dragged himself to his feet and fled, past Betty with a gust of wind that made her exclaim "Jug, is that you? Are you ok?" 

He needed to think, so he headed for the writing room. Once he was at the desk he immediately began to feel less fragmented. Clearly facing the trauma of his death had restored much of him memory and with it brought up some of his most longstanding issues. He tried to examine them calmly, to challenge their power over his mind. He would face his fears and by confronting them rob them of their potency. He would let them go. His father had been a scary drunk. Deep down, he knew, some of his earliest memories were of fear and rejection. But now his pop was doing much better. Betty had told him he hadn't gone back to the bottle even when he had to pick up his dead kid from the roadside and get him buried. So that fear was an understandable consequence of a traumatic childhood but it posed no threat to either him or to Betty. He could let it go. The Black Hood had threatened to kill Betty, the most terrifying threat imaginable. But he was deader than Jughead himself and could pose no danger to her any longer. He could be dismissed as a nightmare without substance. His twisted fantasy of Archie taking his place in his home and in Betty's life was a source of some shame. What if Betty did need someone? Archie was a good man. He loved Betty. If they could be happy together he should want that for her. Yet to think of them together, as if he had never existed, hurt him, burned like acid at his soul. He stared down his jealousy. He understood that it emerged from his own insecurities and enviousness. Archie stood in his mind as the boy who had it all. He never had to hide in a closet from his dad's drunken rages, his mother and father both wanted him to live with them rather than striving to be free of him like Jughead’s, he got the toys that Jug had to pretend to be too grown up to want, he ate well and slept warm while Jug scavenged and shivered. He had rarely acknowledged the rage but it was clearly there, lurking in his subconscious, biding its time. Again, now he acknowledged it, the thought lacked the power to terrify him. Finally Bret, drinking his beer. That was harder to comprehend. He hadn't thought of Bret in years. He’d been defeated, both as an adversary and as a manifestation of Jughead’s own class insecurity. He no longer felt embarrassed about his impecunious upbringing. He had made a success of his life, a beautiful wife, a brace of college degrees, a publishing contract, this big ass fancy house. Jughead was everything Bret wanted to be but lacked the work ethic or the talent to achieve. So why was the preppy cropping up in his unconscious and weirding him out now? He sat at the desk as the light faded, treating his own subconscious as if it were an author to whom he was giving notes. Why had the character been introduced now— unless he was already in the narrative somewhere? Someone had called from the Wyrm, someone who knew something of Jug's domestic situation back in the day, who knew he would take off at once to try to put right all wrongs, to be the parent to his father. If it had been Bret who called, what did that mean for his accident? Had Stonewall finally managed to finish the job it had started back in senior year?

He had been a decent investigator once but it was much harder now he was beyond the veil. He needed his Tracy True. He drifted through the house until he heard water running in the bathroom. Of course, she was upset after reliving those first days of her widowhood. Her solution would be to take a bubble bath. He waited until he heard music begin to drift down the stairs. He followed the sound until he was hesitating outside the door. Normally he would have waited to be invited in either to join her or to sit on the edge of the tub and soap her back or rinse her hair while they chatted. He couldn't even knock now. He passed through the door, keeping his back to her respectfully, feeling creepy about being unseen while she was naked. The room was full of steam so he moved to the mirror and pushed a finger to the glass. With just a little effort he was able to write in the condensation. He wanted to write so much and yet he needed to get some information. or at least warn her if there might be some danger. He wrote “Bret W-W?" on the glass and then turned to see Betty's shocked face amongst the suds. She looked pale despite the fact that the water was certainly hot. "He called. After the funeral. He said he wanted to offer his condolences. I hung up on him. Fuck. How did he even know?” she pondered.

“How indeed?” thought Jughead. Perhaps he'd been a witness. Then, with a sickening wrench through his solar plexus he found himself pulled away, out of the warm, steamy bathroom. He was on a road, sodden pines surrounding him, dusk fading into a moonless night, wet asphalt beneath his feet, drizzle hanging in the air. A motorcycle was approaching and with a sickening thud of terror he realised what he was about to see. He wanted to close his eyes, run away into the forest, be anywhere but here. Then, with dreadful inevitability the bike rounded a bend and began down the straight towards him. He recognised the Basquiat crown on his helmet, the throaty roar of his old Triumph and he saw the rope strung across the road, tied between two trees. Jughead on the bike saw it at the same instant and tried to skid to a halt. The attempt, on a wet road, was never going to work and, as the bike skidded, Jughead found himself drawn inexorably to the figure being flung from the saddle. He heard himself yell “Betty,” felt the sickening impact, white hot pain everywhere and nothing more.

He looked at his own crumpled cadaver in the wet leaves at the side of the road and was convulsed with wracking sobs of sympathy for his own broken body. He had always found himself to be a source of irritation and discontent, disliked his tendency to over dramatise, his self absorption, his gawky, skinny body. Now, however, he found a glimmer of love for the dead man before him. He was a talented writer, a devoted husband, a dutiful son. He had hoped to be a doting and protective father, had dreamed of holding a baby in his arms, teaching a little blonde girl to ride a bike or throw a baseball, not that he had a great deal of skill to share, but he would have tried with everything he was. He stared down at the corpse, tears falling freely now.

With a start he realised that he was not alone. There was a car parked a little off the road and a dark figure was emerging and walking towards him and his corpse. As the man drew near, Jughead was not surprised to recognise Bret Weston fucking Wallis. Bret stood over the broken body, nudging it with the toe of a loafer. "Done and done Forsythe," he gloated. "Who's the better man now, sport?" He removed the rope, turned on his heel and stalked back to the coupé, slamming the door and over revving as he pulled away down the wet road, heading for the rest of his life, having stolen the remainder of Jughead's. 

Jug didn't recall leaving the scene of the crime. His next sensation was the cool glass of the study windows against his forehead. He was staring out at the dark gardens, weeping. All very ghostly behaviour. All he needed were some chains to rattle. He needed his anchor or he might drift away forever, tortured by the injustice of it all. He climbed the stairs as he had so many times, after writing late into the night and then slinking up to climb into bed beside her, wrap her in his arms, smile as she murmured his name in her sleep and pushed herself against him, soft and heavy with slumber.

He was in the bedroom before he noticed that she was not asleep. She was sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room, an empty wine glass on the nightstand, her laptop on the floor beside her. As he approached she smiled. "Hey. Is that you? I wish I could touch you. I really need a hug right now.”

He approached and tried to touch her hair but his fingers passed through without meeting the slightest resistance. He was angry and frustrated. Because of that preppy bastard he couldn't even comfort his wife. It made him rage inside and as he gave into the emotion he realised that she was staring up at him. Not just in his direction but actually looking right at him. "Jug I think I see you. Or maybe I'm going crazy. Maybe I'm making up the whole thing. Is that really you?” He reached out again, his heart seeming to lurch as he touched her soft cheek.

"It's me," he replied, startling when her mouth fell open in surprise.

"I hear you. On God Jug. It's so good to hear you. Can I touch you? You won't dematerialise or something?" 

"I don't know. I've no idea why this is happening. Let's make the most of it while it lasts." He reached out and touched her face, running his fingers around her jaw and down to her neck. "I love you so much Betty. I need you to know that and, whatever happens in the future, I only want you to be happy. If I... go away... I want you to know that anything, anyone who makes you happy makes me happy too. You can meet someone, love them, have a life, a family. I want all of that for you. Don't shut yourself off from joy. Promise.” She was staring at him, her eyes full of tears.

"You are a terribly dumb man for someone who's so clever on paper Jug. How could I love someone else when I’ve loved you? It's not possible. Death hasn't been able to break our bond, how can you imagine some random hot guy could do it? Now you're wasting time. I can see you and hear you and touch you. I'm not planning to let this opportunity pass me by.” She stood and pressed herself to him. He gave in to the sensation, took her in his arms and pulled her against his body.

"I have to tell you something. It's going to ruin the mood. I’m so sorry," he muttered, pulling back a little to look into her eyes.

"Bret murdered you. I know. I worked it out. I would have gotten there much earlier if it wasn’t for the pills and the crushing, black depression. It messes with my investigative powers. We'll get him.” 

He kissed her then, letting her feel his love and admiration in his passion, groaning when she tugged on his bottom lip with her teeth. She kissed his neck and he arched back his head with the warmth and the pleasure of the sensation. Then she was lying back against the pillows, pulling at his jeans, making a whining noise as she tried to undo his buttons. “Hey, gently. What’s the panic?”

“I have to have you Jug. I need you to be inside me. I dream of it, you shuddering as you come in me and then I wake up crying because I’m so empty. Make me not feel empty anymore, please. I just want your pleasure, you having me. It makes me crazy with needing you. I want you to stay inside me after you come. Fuck I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I need that. Please.” It was the rawest admission of need he’d ever heard from his self sufficient, strong wife and it made him lose any control that he had been clinging to. He threw off his jeans, tearing at her underwear, ripping the lace from her hips, thrusting his hand between her legs and pressing his fingers into her frantically as she gasped and pulled his t-shirt over his head, followed by her own. “Now. I’m ready, do it now,” she muttered, her hand guiding him. He sank into her and exhaled with the relief of it, the naturalness of it. She was thrusting upwards, pressing herself to him so he was drawn deeper and he began to move in her, a hand on her breast, his mouth at her throat. He had always been careful to prioritise her experience, to bring her to climax before thinking of himself but, with her need still hanging in the air, he slammed his hips against her, taking her, finding his pleasure in her. She was crying out as he thrust, and he brought himself back from the brink to look into her eyes.

“Is this what you want? Like this?” he gasped.

“Yes, yes, I’m so close. Don’t stop,” she sobbed and he thrust again, harder, faster, until he felt her spasming as she came but he kept his rhythm, biting at her throat now. He’d leave her something when he was torn from her again, she’d see the marks in the mirror and know he had been here, had made her his again and again. She threw back her head, exposing her throat to him and he knew she understood what had been in his mind, wanted it too, so he sucked and bit at her neck even as his own orgasm wracked him and he collapsed against her. She held him tightly and he stayed exactly where he was as they calmed together. 

Perhaps they slept for a moment, the intensity of their feelings evaporating into slumber, releasing him to float into unconsciousness. He opened his eyes, back in the study, staring into the garden again. The difference was that now he remembered everything that had been taken from him. As he looked out he remembered a summer afternoon in that garden, three years before. Cheryl Blossom in coveralls, ruby red coveralls but coveralls nonetheless. She had been balancing at the top of a ladder as she strung twinkle lights between the trees. He’d stood below, steadying the ladder. “Thank you for this Cheryl. It’ll be amazing,” he’d said, touched by her efforts to make the place worthy of Betty. 

“Beautiful bride, beautiful venue, almost makes up for the groom being a hobo,” she replied and he nodded in acknowledgement of her habitual slur. “Actually, and I’ll deny it if you repeat it, but Cousin Betty got lucky with you Jughead. I know you’d die for her and she thinks you hung the moon. It’s sort of beautiful in a boringly straight way.”

Jug smiled at the memory. He remembered Archie, shirt off, tool belt at his waist, nails between his lips, securing the planks that would serve as both the aisle and then later the dance floor. Swiping the tacks from his mouth to call out, “Hey dude, did my suit arrive yet? Otherwise this is how your best man is going to be dressed tonight.”

“In your room. Your mom brought it with her. How the fuck did you forget your suit Arch?” Arch gave his signature lopsided grin, the one that ensured that he would be forgiven anything and went back to the hammering. Veronica passing laden with flowers, glancing at the Andrews abs and shaking herself a little, trying not to start back down that particular road.

Snapshots from that day, Betty walking down the aisle on his dad’s arm, the most beautiful woman that had ever walked the Earth, promising to be his forever, Fangs dancing the pasadoble with Cheryl, Sweetpea and Reggie Mantle rolling their sleeves in preparation for a fight that Toni stood between them and prevented with sheer force of will, Alice Cooper kissing him on the cheek and telling him she couldn’t have wanted anyone better for her daughter. Remembering it all made being dead so much worse.

Now he knew that Bret had been responsible for his death he was unable to let the thought drop. He wanted to seek revenge of course but even more he wanted to understand. He had beaten Bret, had him expelled from his school, threatened him with exposure as the pervert he was and yet for him to seek retribution on Jughead after all these years seemed bizarre. Something else must be behind the scheme. Something or someone else. He felt himself begin to dissipate, watching in the window’s reflection as he became transparent, powerless to prevent it just as he had been unable to stand against death.

He found himself dragged abruptly into almost concrete existence with a wrenching sensation to find Donna Sweett sitting primly at the dining table across from Betty while Bret trained a gun on his widow. He wasn’t sure if the rage he felt was his alone or if he was feeling Betty’s fury too. It was more anger than he had ever felt, threatening to explode out of him like nails from a pipe bomb. He wanted to rampage through the house like an onryō, bringing down typhoons and hurricanes and ripping the miscreants souls from their still breathing bodies. He was aware of another feeling alongside the frenzy. Curiosity had always been his dominant character trait and he needed to know why this was happening. He drifted invisibly to Betty’s side and put his hand on hers. She looked down at her lap to try to disguise a secret smile of relief. “Something funny Betty?” asked Donna pertly.

She looked up at her captor. “Well all this really.” She gestured at Bret and his awkward stance with the firearm. “I would have imagined that even someone as emotionally stunted and repressed as you, Donna, would have recovered from a disappointment that happened in high school. Frankly if anyone should be out for blood it should be me since you tried to murder Jughead but no, here you are, quite unable to move on. It’s pretty pathetic actually.”

“Oh Betty. This isn’t personal. This is business. You see I have by dint of some assiduous and distasteful work managed to again secure the rights to my grandmother’s legacy. I have the Tracy True books again. But you made some ill advised threats against me in our schooldays. I can’t afford to be blackmailed. Fortunately Bret and I can play a long game so, to paraphrase the poem, first we came for Forsythe and you did nothing and now we’ve come for you.”

“Why the hell would you hurt Jug? He didn’t threaten you. You’re psychotic.”

Bret answered the question with a smirk. “Betty, Betty, Betty. If we had simply killed you, as was our first thought, Forsythe would have tracked us down and exacted a bloody revenge. We would have been pretty high on his list of suspects once the books were published. He had a tendency to reach for a knife as a first resort didn’t he? But we calculated, correctly, that if we could make his death appear accidental we could then wait a few months and believably stage your suicide. Two deaths, a tragic chain of events, no crime to be investigated. Two perfect murders for the price of one. Dear Mr Dupont would have been so proud. And here we are. Now you can either take the pills that we have thoughtfully brought with us and peacefully drift away into the arms of your dear departed love or we can make things considerably more unpleasant. We have the means to force-feed you the drugs and Donna has the plastic bag to tie over your head. You have a reputation for thoroughness. No-one will question it.”

“Really Betty,” chimed in Donna. “I would have imagined you would be eager. It has been months since Forsythe has serviced you. I imagine you find life without his ministrations intolerable.”

Jug was only managing to maintain his calm by the most monumental act of will. His mind whirled as he tried to plot some means to rescue Betty and to end the two conspirators. He thought he could put out some decent “Paranormal Activity” scares but that didn’t seem an adequate response to their misdeeds and they might well panic and hurt Betty. He urgently needed backup but silent calls to the sheriff’s office were unlikely to elicit an armed response even if he could dial which was debatable. 

Betty was speaking again and he tried to focus his attention. “Very well. I’ll take your pills.” He was horrified. He tried to take her by the shoulder but she gave a tiny shrug and he let go. “You’re right Donna, even if you express it crudely. I don’t want to live without Jughead. It’s just too hard. I’ve been thinking about ending it and now, if you are forcing me, I don’t have to worry about facing judgement. You see, since I’ve been alone I’ve come to faith. I have just one final request. I’d like to make my altar and offer some prayers before I join my husband. Will you let me have that if I promise to cooperate afterwards?”

Jug was momentarily confused. While she had always been interested in spirituality, Betty hadn’t found God since her bereavement. He’d been in there, he knew for a fact that she was lying. Then, like a shaft of moonlight through trees he began to understand.

“I need to gather a few things,” she was saying, “You can come with me if you want but I give you my word that I won’t try to escape.” She was making her voice sad and slow, a note of resignation under her words. Donna nodded and indicated that Bret should accompany her, holding the gun close. Jug remained in the dining room with Donna, observing her as she looked about the room contemptuously.

Soon Betty and Bret returned. She had the tablecloth and the candles under her arm and was holding the family Bible carefully in her hands. She began to make the mesa blanca just as Veronica’s grandmother had. She moved the flowers over from the dining table and fetched the glass of water from the kitchen. They didn’t own an altar cross but Betty found another candlestick to hang Señora Luna’s rosary at the rear of the altar. He wondered how she would manage the prayer until he remembered her AP Spanish class. She began to pray and even Bret and Donna had the common decency to stand in respectful silence behind her. He wondered if she expected him to enter her. He had a different plan. As soon as he felt the pull towards the occupants of the room he stepped smartly into Bret. Bret flinched and he felt him push back against his possession, an instinctive, horrified, violated shove. Unfortunately for Bret he lacked the mental strength to resist Jughead’s absolute determination to protect Betty. With a final effort Jughead was in. It was a terrible place. Bret was, inside, a self hating, cringing, terrified worm of a human. He was frightened of everything but especially of this occupation by his late victim. Jughead was disturbed to find a range of violent sexual fantasies that involved him and he turned away from them quickly. While Betty’s interior world was airy and clean, Bret’s was cramped and meagre, locked doors and twisting passageways, shame and disgust. Bret was pleading with him to get out, crying and quivering. “Shut up Bret or I’ll make you so crazy that you’ll never recover your wits,” Jughead spat in disgust, his words falling from Bret’s lips.

“What in the name of God is going on Bret?” Donna cried, her characteristic self possession deserting her. Jughead turned the gun on her and she stared at him, eyes wide and bewildered. 

“You know what Stephen King said about ghosts Donna? Or is he too low brow for you?” he said, in Bret’s voice. “He said ‘Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.’” he said. “Betty, my love, will you tie our guests up please? Oh actually, if you still have the handcuffs in the nightstand they’d be useful.” Donna actually retched as the implications of what he had said penetrated her understanding. 

Soon both Donna and Bret were tied securely to dining room chairs that Betty had dragged into the hallway and secured with handcuffs to the banister spindles. Jug tried Bret’s bonds to the limit of his strength and then, satisfied that he was secure, he exited, shuddering as if he had been submerged in a septic tank. 

As he stepped out of Bret he realised that everything was utterly still. No-one moved, no-one spoke. He glanced out of the window. The moon seemed so bright. As if called by the moonlight he walked down the hall, past the stilled clock, to the study, to look out of the French windows. It wasn’t the moon, the light in the garden, it was brighter and too low. It seemed to draw him like a magnet attracting iron filings. He paused, looking back. Betty, perfectly still, her hand reaching for her phone, Bret and Donna, dumbstruck. The thought was in his head, “It’s over.” Betty was safe, justice would be done, he would be avenged, order was restored. He felt like he could simply drift through the doors, out into the garden, towards that comforting light and be nothing. He could rest at last, leave the struggle to the living, be at peace. It was no undiscovered country, he knew what he would find there. Perfect love and acceptance, the reward for a hard struggle. It was, he supposed, devoutly to be wished.

With a start he dragged himself from the glass. Was he going to leave Betty here, alone, mourning, needing him, feeling empty, desiring him without relief? Never. He stared at the glass until he could make out his own reflection shimmering there. “You are Forsythe Jughead Pendleton Jones the third. Shape the fuck up.” He said his name twice more, staring at the reflection as the light outside faded to the haziest glimmer. 

Abruptly there was a gasp and a shriek from behind him in the hallway. He realised that the captives were looking back at him, horror on their faces. They could see him. He guessed the heightened emotion in the room was feeding his corporeality. He lolled his head to emphasise his broken neck but found that it didn’t cooperate. His spine felt pretty damn solid. Shrugging his shoulders he darted towards them with a loud “Boo,” that made them both scream. A wet patch bloomed in Bret’s lap, darkening his chinos. Betty was giggling helplessly as she stood holding the phone. She looked over and asked Jug, “What’s it to be? Sweetpea and the guys or Charles and the FBI? A shallow grave or a supermax?”

He looked at them for a long moment, considering, and then said “Call Charles. I don’t want any more blood on my hands.”

She began to dial but then registered what he had said and raised an eyebrow,”More?” He began to swing at Bret, a tooth flying from his mouth with the first blow, followed by a gush of blood. “Oh, yeah, I see.”

Eventually Charles arrived with the resources of law enforcement to take Bret and Donna into custody, questioning Betty over and over again as to how she had managed to apprehend them alone and unaided when Bret had a gun. She managed to defer and distract him until the criminals had been removed from the property and all the other agents had departed. At last she called upstairs “Jug darling. Only Charles here now.” Jughead trotted down the stairs with a grin and caught Charles up in a bear hug that Charles recovered himself enough to return eventually.

“That feels good Chuck. How ya been?” Jughead asked as Charles stared at him agog.

“Jughead, you were definitely dead. I went to your funeral. I was with FP when we identified your body. How do you keep doing this?” Charles seemed to be struggling to stand. He wasn’t used to a plot he hadn’t orchestrated.

“OK, bro. Come and sit down. I think Betty and I need a little more help,” grinned Jug.

**Epilogue**

Three years later…

“Reports of my Death” An Interview with Forsythe Jones. (From The New Yorker Magazine)

Forsythe (“Jughead” to friends although he refuses to explain why) Jones is glad to be alive. I was invited to spend the afternoon with him and his rather complicated family at the home in Connecticut that he shares with his wife the celebrated investigative reporter Elizabeth Cooper, their eighteen month old son Anastacio and assorted dogs, cats, rabbits and other livestock.

Readers will remember the scandal when, eleven months after his death was announced, Jones suddenly reappeared, hale and hearty and decidedly alive and offering to repay his posthumous award from the Mark Twain Society. Cynics suggested that he had a book to plug or a screenplay to hype, more sympathetic souls suggested a breakdown had torn him away from a successful literary career as the darling of the crime thriller scene. Jones refused to comment and simply sequestered himself at home, where he and Elizabeth devoted themselves to first time parenthood. Then earlier this year the truth emerged and it was, indeed, stranger than fiction.

“My half brother is an FBI agent,” Jones explains. “He had received credible intel that there was a real and present danger to my life. He said it would be all but impossible to protect me and so the Bureau together with my wife and I came up with a scheme. We would report my death in a motorcycle accident and I would lay low. Charles and his colleagues investigated but just couldn’t catch a lead. Then the perpetrators showed their hand. They came to the house and tried to attack Betty. We managed to fend them off and Charles was able to make the arrest.”

The aforementioned Charles wanders across the lawn at this point, his nephew on his hip, newly awakened from his nap. While the baby crawls on the grass and tries to eat worms and beetles, most of which his father rescues from his chubby hand in time, Charles explains that the crime centred on a publishing empire. “The female, Sweett, had secured the contract to write new books in a long running series. For commercial reasons the book series is not being disclosed but it is a multi million dollar enterprise. Betty and Jughead had discovered that the contract had been secured dishonestly and so Sweett and the other offender decided to silence them. Fortunately the Cooper/Jones/Smith family is made of tough stuff and their plan came to naught.” Sweett and her accomplice Weston Wallis were both handed life sentences last May much to the relief of Forsythe and Elizabeth. 

Elizabeth spends much of the afternoon in the kitchen, baking up a storm. She explains when I track her down that Anastacio is to be baptised the next day and the family and godparents will all be arriving that evening. As she tells me about the guest list, the interconnectedness of these two lives becomes ever more striking. Betty’s mother is married to Forsythe’s father. Charles is half brother to both Betty and her husband (although they share no blood link of course). They have a childhood best friend in common who will serve as godfather to Anastacio alongside his uncle. The child’s godmother is the grandmother of another dear childhood friend and it was she who named their son. It strikes me that anyone foolish enough to attack this couple was taking on a tribe. That thought is only reinforced when a motorcycle club arrive to take part in the festivities. Your reporter takes this as her cue to depart and leave this village to raise the apparently insatiable Anastacio who seems to be chewing a butterfly as I take my leave. 

Forsythe Jones’ latest novel “Beyond the Veil” is published in hardback this Friday.  
Elizabeth Cooper’s true crime podcast “Cooper Investigations” is available now on all podcast platforms.


End file.
